


Repair. Remake.

by wearethewitches



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed References, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey Spoilers, Crossing Timelines, Family, Fix-It, Gen, One Shot, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, knowing anything past Brotherhood is unnecessary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27906508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.- Leonardo da Vinci.Or, if you give self-sacrificial assassins the chance to fix the future, they will--without protest.
Relationships: Alexios & Kassandra (Assassin's Creed), Ezio Auditore da Firenze & Desmond Miles
Comments: 2
Kudos: 154





	Repair. Remake.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [esama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/gifts).



> For @esama, who has written some of the best AC fics on the archive. _Badass with a Baby_ got me thinking about Desmond and Elijah, with feels and then I thought about Kassandra being a mum (even though I was very stressed out by the Legacy of the First Blade DLC), inspiring a whole thought about 'what if Kassandra saved Desmond and followed him to the past to fix Ezio's life, because he lived the dude's life and loved him in his own way'. And yeah, then Clay came out of the blue - oops ;)

The first change was this: when the messenger died, an Assassin stepped out of the shadows.

* * *

The second change was far more public, rippling through Rome, Florence— _Italy_ —like tsunami, a tide that could not be stopped. For those men of the Roman Rite of the Templar Order had been murdered.

Uberto Alberti, Antonio Maffei, Francesco and Jacopo de’ Pazzi, Bernardo Baroncelli, Francesco Salviati, Stefano da Bagnone, Emilio, Marco and Silvio Barbarigo, Carlo Grimaldi and finally, Rodrigo Borgia.

Infamous men, infamous names—and all of them, stone cold _dead_.

* * *

Third—or even first, taking place before Giovanni Auditore da Firenze began chasing a letter—an inventor met with an ancient man.

‘Strangers aren’t welcome here,’ said the inventor, trembling even as he reached for a scalpel. In the dark basement where cold bodies were dissected and studied, Leonardo da Vinci thought to himself, _is it to be prison or death, today?_

‘And yet,’ an impossibly deep voice said, ‘I know _your_ name. That makes us acquaintances, yes?’

 _He has cold eyes,_ Leonardo thought, recognising the Greek influence in his tongue even as he wondered, _what tragedy befell him?_ The psyche of humankind had always been a fascination of his and this man held himself like a warrior, his posture bent and his arms held by his sides, ready to take up a sword at any moment.

‘Until our names have been exchanged, I’m afraid I must disappoint you.’

‘Alexios,’ said the Greek. ‘And I have seen the future. You will come with me, now. My sister is waiting.’

‘Ah,’ Leonardo scrambled to refuse, but alas—it was unfortunately for naught.

* * *

Fourth came introductions.

‘I know who you are,’ said Ezio’s new cousin, who had a scar on his lip to match him and a strange fascination for Ezio himself. His eyes darted from corner to corner, window to window and when he bowed deeply to Mother, he greeted her in Florentine-accented Italian. He spoke like Ezio and it was as frightening as it was uncanny.

The woman in the corner, who leant up against the wall, wearing a dark tunic and hose under her chainmail—a sight so unfamiliar to Ezio that he had to drag his eyes away from her every time he saw her—gently kicked a chair standing by a nearby desk, calling out the name, _‘Elijah.’_

Ezio’s cousin—Desmond, he recalled his name—reacted immediately, his eyes brightening with awe, pulling some wild creature out from under the table, proven to be a child. He grasped something against his chest, something large that glowed even through the thick linen covering it and Desmond took it from him to give to the woman, who hid it away in her belongings.

‘This is my son, Elijah,’ said Desmond. ‘Mario says he looks like Petruccio as a baby.’

‘You really are family?’ Claudia asked, tentative, turning to the woman. ‘Are you Desmond’s wife?’

‘His mother,’ she corrected and Ezio cringed at the faux-pas. The woman placed her hand heavily on Desmond’s shoulder. ‘We heard of troubles here in Italy, so came to help. There is much you do not know and much you must learn, if you wish to survive, even with the collapse of the Order.’

‘You wouldn’t have survived,’ said Desmond, quietly and almost to himself. It chills Ezio to the bone—but when he looks to Federico, his brother only has eyes for the strangers.

‘Nothing is true,’ he says and Desmond looks up with an almost-empty smile, his eyes dark and yet full of promise as he replies.

‘Everything is permitted.’

* * *

And before all that, in the Grey, Clay Kaczmarek saw many things he couldn’t understand. That changed when Desmond used the Apple in the Grand Temple, saving the world and damning it all the same. It was so easy to pluck poor Desmond’s mind from the world and _yet,_ Clay still had no idea how he did it. Human minds aren’t meant to be played with like that. They never have.

The solution to bringing him back to life was obvious, too, but it was one thing Clay couldn’t do to him. Not to Desmond. So, when more minds like his—like Desmond’s, like Ezio’s and Connor’s and Bayek’s and Edward's and Haytham's and Altaïr's—shifted into the Grey, he stored them like photo albums in a dusty attic. Safe, out of the way.

Secret.

Secret until, at least, they woke up and started talking. It was a complete shitshow, Desmond losing himself over and over, Kassandra and Alexios mixing and merging until they didn’t know who was who, anymore. Once upon a time, Clay imagined a horrifying world where you could drop into someone’s life with little more than a strand of hair and because he’s not an idiot, able to predict human nature just like the Precursors of Old, of course, it came true.

Layla would go mad from it all, he knew. He thought of that vikingr she’s reliving and did not weep—because he lived in the Grey and in the Grey, they had _time._

In the depths of Monteriggioni, there was a crypt. An old crypt, with precious treasures hidden inside. He waited until Mario had discovered the Shroud and until Mario had killed his allies-turned-enemies, before remaking the world. He watched with satisfaction as Mario staggered to a wall in shock, as Desmond and Kassandra and Alexios grew from nothing.

And just because he was a bastard, Clay threw in the boy he knew was Desmond’s, too. No need to split up the family, after all. With how much trauma each of them went through and how much he knew they were going to fix, they’d need something to focus on.

‘Elijah Miles,’ Clay mused, before disappearing.


End file.
